Are you listening, Monsieur le Président?

My faithful readers - I actually have more these days over at Salut! Sunderland, but that's a performance related thing whereas this, I pray, is not - will doubtless want to hear more about the extraordinary tale of the Provençal village café that is two steps too close to God.

If you read the first item, but didn't go back to it later, you may not know that the case was adjourned until Sept 5. The French press caught up this morning with Salut! in reporting as much.

On that date, the appeal court in Aix-en-Provence will theoretically rule on whether the Bar des Cascades in La Motte deserves to be fined and/or closed, permanently or temporarily, for being two metres short of the 40 required, in terms of its distance from the parish church, to conform to local law.

Since the offending route of 38 metres is as a devout but thirsty crow might fly, as opposed to how anyone venturing from pew to pastis would actually negotiate the journey (ie at least 82 metres, via le good old trottoir),we are entitled to ask whether someone, somewhere is not also two metres short of a full helping of commonsense.

Is this not, I am urged, a matter in which the new president of France should be taking a keen interest, if he is serious about brushing away the cobwebs and absurdities of French bureaucracy that get irritatingly in the way of enterprise and hard work?

The same thought had occurred to me as I called at the local supermarket and noticed that the newsagent shop run by my friend Marie-Noëlle (a very useful badminton player, I'll have you know) was closed. But so, it seemed, was the hairdresser's salon next door.

La petite presse, she announced in a sign posted to the shutters, was getting bigger. And would reopen, having taking over the salon, next Monday. She has been slaving away all week, helping to get the place ready and, I suspect, may soon find the pressure of work limiting her appearances on court even more that it does now.

Yet Marie-Noëlle, I am sure, also struggles daily with the complexity and wooden-headed obstructionism of l'administration publique.

And it's not just her. This was my good friend and web guru Craig McGinty's reponse to the original Salut! article:

Get that in front of Sarko and his crew to show just how stupid French
bureaucracy is and the impact it has on smaller businesses!!! A pal of mine is heading back after running a successful business with majority French clients due to the excessive charges. This is one area that really needs to change and fast, because without a vibrant small business community there won't be the employment options to eat into the unemployment figures. God knows how much it has cost the couple who own the bar but I bet they would prefer not to be throwing money at legal eagles. As you can see it annoys me a touch.....

I am not sure quite how far the power and influence of Salut! penetrate the Elysée. We shall see.

In the meantime, let Erick Beruti, the café's co-proprietor - with his wife Marion - have the last word (unless my hand is forced) before September:

"At 100 metres from the Palis de Justice in Aix-en-Provence, I could not help but notice that a bistrot was attached to a religious building. If the last letter of the law has to be applied to my premises, it has also to others and we'll end up closing practically all the cafés in France. "

Comments

[Bill Taylor]

Subliminally revealed or not, is Marie-Noëlle aware of your seemingly more-than-friendly designs ("I'll have you") upon her? Perhaps she might prefer you to keep your shuttlecock to yourself.

[Dumdad]

Still, at least the French collect the bins more than once a fortnight.

That has nothing really to do with your story but I've just read about how more absurd Britain is becoming as, apparently, people will be fined if they don't recycle their rubbish properly.

Anyway, I'll have a word with Sarko next time he's up my way about that bar.

[Bill Taylor]

What's ridiculous about requiring people to recycle their garbage properly?

[Tim Sinclair]

It's not the recycling (politically?) correctly that's ridiculous, it's the fines. Yet again Nanny State is going to confiscate our pocket money if we don't do as we're told - be it having our dog on a lead, dropping a fag end in the street or failing to take out the window pane of envelopes in the green bin.

Interfering and patronising people who are meant to be our public servants go to ridiculous lengths to apply the letter of minor laws when commonsense - as in the case of the Bar des Cascades in La Motte - should prevail. Crying out loud, aren't there far more important issues to be tackled? I suppose it just goes to prove that little things do please little officials' minds.

[Steven]

I wonder whether there isn't some kind of possible architectural rearrangement that would comply with the letter of the law. A new front door? Moving the bar within the room?